Wonders of the World

Wonders of the World: Lecture 4

Lecture 4

21st August, 1911

Y

ESTERDAY'S
lecture will have enabled you to see what I meant when I said at the
outset of this course that the Greeks thought of the whole of Nature
as permeated by Spirit; they had no such conception of nature as we
have today. You will have realised this from the way I tried to show
the position of the three great gods, Zeus, Poseidon and Pluto in
Greek spiritual life. We see that we have to think of the microcosmic
forces found in man's astral body as transplanted into cosmic
space. If we think of the sovereign ruler of these powers, their
controlling centre, as superpersonal, superhuman, we have what Greek
feeling associated with the name Zeus. Similarly, if we think of the
forces of our ether bodies transplanted into cosmic space, we have
what the Greeks associated with Poseidon; if we think of the forces
of our physical bodies as transplanted into space, we have what the
Greeks associated with Pluto.

Now it will certainly
occur to you to ask: ‘What about the fourth member of our human
being?’ For in our time we have of course to regard the whole
man as consisting of physical, etheric, astral, and also of the ego
or the ego-bearer. Now it is obvious that because this ego is in such
a peculiar position in relation to the other members of the human
being, the forces of the universe corresponding to the ego must also
be in a peculiar position. One can say of the forces of the physical
body that transplanted into the world of space they are governed by
the central power of Pluto; similarly the forces of the ether body
come into the sphere of Poseidon, and the forces of the astral body
into the sphere of Zeus. But when we consider the ego itself, we find
that it is closely bound up with all that is happening around us.
Indeed with our egos we are right inside the world. Upon what goes on
in the world around us our whole destiny, our happiness or
unhappiness, depends. Very little reflection upon the matter leads us
to feel that the forces of our ego must be very different from the
forces of Pluto around us in space. Just as the destiny of the ego is
closely connected with the environment, so too we must think of the
forces of this ego as also connected with the divine-spiritual
forces outside in space which are their counterpart, just as the
other divine-spiritual forces correspond to soul-forces within us.
Think how closely the experiences of our ego are bound up with our
environment! How different our ego feels if we raise our eyes and
allow it to plunge into the star-strewn heavens, or to gaze, at dawn
or dusk, upon the rising or the setting sun! How little can we detach
our egos from all this! How intimately we are bound up with the
macrocosm out there! With our egos we are as if emptied out into our
environment. What radiates into us from without, the golden rays of
the sun, the majestic world of the stars, at one moment is something
objective outside in the macrocosm, at another, an idea within the
human soul, within the microcosm; in actual life we can scarcely
distinguish between the two, they merge into one another. From the
way the Greek had of experiencing the world and its wonders directly,
we may expect him to think of the divinity who represented to him the
ego-forces holding sway outside in space as far more closely related,
far more closely bound up with the human being than the other gods
— whom he really thought of as quite remote from human nature.
Hence we find, as the representative of the ego-forces in the world
outside, a divine figure with a certain affinity with human nature,
so to say, one whose destiny, whose whole life, seems in a way quite
human. That god is Dionysos. Just as we have to look upon Pluto as
representing the forces of the physical body, Poseidon as
representing the forces of the ether body, and Zeus as representing
the forces of the astral body, transplanted into the universe, so we
have to regard Dionysos as the macrocosmic representative of the
soul-forces which live in our ego. The way in which the Greeks looked
upon Dionysos, that figure which stands before our ego at last in
such a remarkable way in the Mystery of Eleusis, will only become
fully clear to us if first we learn a little about the way spiritual
powers and spiritual beings in general work into our earthly
existence, into the wonders which constitute our own human
existence.

Much of what I am now
about to say by way of parenthesis you will find in the little book I
have just completed and which in essentials reproduces lectures that
I gave a short time ago in Copenhagen. It is called
The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind.
I shall have to refer to certain
passages in this little book which have a bearing upon our purpose in
these lectures. First we have to reflect that humanity, as it evolves
on the earth, determining its own destiny, little by little shaping
the epochs of its own civilisation, is guided by Beings whom we must
call super-human, Beings not accessible to human sense-perception,
but to be found in the main in a super-sensible world, and attainable
only to clairvoyant sight. If we turn to the category of Beings
concerned with the guidance of mankind which is nearest to man, we
find those who in eastern mysticism are called Dhyani, in Christian
terminology Angels, Angeloi. We have often spoken of these superhuman
Beings of the first category, and you know the relationship in which
they stand to us. We know that, under quite different conditions of
life, they too were once human; that was during the Moon evolution,
at the time when our present Earth was passing through its previous
embodiment. At that time these Angel Beings, who today take part in
the guidance of humanity, were themselves passing through their human
stage; thus at the commencement of the present evolution of the Earth
they had got so far that today they stand one stage higher than
humanity; at the end of Earth evolution that part of humanity which
reaches the goal of the present Earth evolution will be as far
advanced as the Angels were at the end of the Moon evolution. Hence
these Beings are particularly fitted to be responsible for this
guidance at the point where it is nearest to man. They are at work
within our human evolution.

Now we invariably
find in evolution that one thing, one epoch, is never exactly like
another, and when we say that the Angels were the leaders nearest to
men, that is not to be taken as of universal application. Thus no one
should say, ‘then Angels were leaders of humanity in the first
postAtlantean culture-epoch, in the Persian epoch, in the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch, and so on.’ To do so would be to think
in a very abstract way. Things are not like that in the real world;
there are all sorts of distinctions. As a matter of fact, there are
only two post-Atlantean epochs in which the Angels have the direct
and in a way, independent guidance of humanity — the third, the
Egypto-Chaldean, and our own, the fifth epoch. In the Egypto-Chaldean
epoch it was Angels who were the actual leaders of the epoch. How did
they carry out their leadership?

On this point we may
quote the Greek historian Herodotus. Once when the ancient Egyptians
were asked who were their great leaders they answered, ‘the
gods’. In the language of olden time ‘the gods’
meant these Angelic Beings, and the ancient Egyptians who were
instructed in such things said quite seriously that at that time
those who were the leaders of mankind were not normal men, but Beings
of a superhuman nature, Beings who had already completed their human
stage during the Moon evolution. But these leaders of humanity in the
Egypto-Chaldean culture-epoch were unable to appear directly in human
bodies. The physical bodies which we men have are an Earth product,
wholly dependent upon earthly conditions of existence; and only
beings who are going through their human evolution on the Earth
— that is to say, only men — have a constitution of soul
able to live out their lives in this sheath of the human physical
body. Because the Angels went through their human stage on the Moon,
it is impossible for them to clothe themselves in such a sheath as
the human physical body. Thus they could not descend into incarnation
in physical, fleshly bodies. These leaders of the Egypto-Chaldean
epoch did not tread the Earth in human form. There were however men
gifted with clairvoyance who were susceptible to inspiration from the
spiritual worlds. In moments when they were specially open to these
inspirations they were able to see before them those guiding Beings
and to permeate themselves with their substance. These old
clairvoyants offered up their bodies to the guiding Beings, they said
to them, as it were, ‘Behold my body; enter into it, permeate
it with spirit, inspire it.’ Thus in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch
there walked on Earth an ordinary man, but one who was clairvoyant;
what he said and did and what he taught was spoken and enacted in him
and through him as the instrument of a higher Being, one who had
completed his human development on the Moon. This was how the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch was guided, and this guidance endeavoured above
all to direct humanity along the straight line of evolution, to
further its unfettered development towards the goal of the Earth.
Thus Angels — Angeloi — who had completed their human
stage on the Moon, inspired the loftiest seers of the Egypto-Chaldean
epoch, and through their instrumentality became kings and priests,
the leading personalities of the period.

Side by side with
these individualities there were yet others. One would have sought in
vain for the leading individualities in human bodies. But there were
others in a different position. They were Angel Beings in the lowest
stage of Luciferic development, Angel Beings who had not completed
their evolution on the Moon, who had not attained the goal of lunar
humanity, thus Beings who, when the Earth evolution began, were
themselves not so far advanced as men will be at the end of Earth
evolution, if they reach their full development. These Beings too
instilled their forces into the Egypto-Chaldean civilisation; but
just because they had not fully completed their human stage, they
were able to tread the Earth in human fleshly bodies. They incarnated
in human bodies and mixed with the rest as real men. Legends are to
be found among all peoples of such individualities, not only in
Chaldea and Egypt, but among all the peoples of that time; they tell
us of men who dwelt on Earth, but who were really in their inner
soul-nature backward Angel Beings from the Moon. It was these
individualities that the Greeks were referring to, when they spoke of
their Heroes — for example, Cecrops and Cadmos. None of the
great leaders of civilisation were actually men (I am not now
speaking of the ones who only inspired men, but of those who really
dwelt among men in physical bodies); their human form was
maya, they were in truth backward Moon Beings. These
individualities were the Heroes, superhuman Beings who were in the
lowest of the Luciferic ranks. What then was the actual task of these
Beings? It is wisely decreed in the plan of universal evolution that
not only those Beings who guide evolution along its line of direct
advance have legitimate tasks; if man were only subject to the
spiritual guidance of those normally developed Beings, he would push
forward in his evolution too swiftly, with too little weight, too
little gravity. Evolution has need of hindrances in order that the
right tempo can be maintained. Evolution needs a certain weight. The
progressive forces gain strength only by meeting with resistance.
Those Beings who by the wise guidance of the world lagged behind
during the Moon evolution have the task of imparting weight to
evolution.

I said that it would
be wrong if one were to apply what I have just described for the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch to all the culture-epochs. Things were
different in the Persian epoch. There it was not the Angels who
played the outstanding part in the guidance of humanity; there
humanity was much more directly subject to the Archangels or
Archangeloi. One may say that the Persian, the Zarathustra culture,
was guided by Archangels just as the Egypto-Chaldean culture was
under the direct guidance of Angels. And just as the Egyptian
clairvoyant kings and priests were inspired by Angels, so Zarathustra
and his pupils were inspired by Archangels, Amshaspands. If we go
right back to the first post-Atlantean epoch, to the civilisation of
which we still get a faint echo in the Vedas, we come to the great
teachers of India, who are called the Holy Rishis. The Holy Rishis
were inspired by a still higher hierarchy, they were inspired by the
Spirits of Personality, the Principalities, the Archai, who of course
used the Archangels and the Angels as their instruments, but who at
that time intervened far more directly than they did later.

Thus we have to
record a continuous progress of humanity from the first
post-Atlantean epoch through the succeeding epochs, inasmuch as ever
lower ranks of hierarchies intervene in the spiritual guidance of
mankind. First in the Indian epoch the highest rank, the Archai or
Spirits of Personality, then in the Persian epoch the next lower
hierarchy, the Archangels, and in the Egyptian epoch the Beings who
are next above man, the Angels. In the Greek period quite special
conditions prevailed. At that time the leaders of humanity were the
Beings who, of all superhuman Beings, had the greatest need
themselves, so that those leaders of the Greco-Latin time gave men
the greatest independence and freedom; for they were hoping to attain
as much for themselves through their leadership as man could attain
through them. Hence in Greco-Latin times we have the remarkable
phenomenon that mankind seems to be thrown upon its own resources,
seems to be self-sufficient. There has been no epoch of civilisation
since the Atlantean catastrophe during which man was thrown so
entirely on his own resources, or in which so much depended upon his
expressing his own peculiar self as in the Greco-Latin time. Hence
we see too how everything in this epoch tends to bring to expression
in its purest form the human individuality. It could be said that
this was so because the guiding hierarchies slackened the reins,
because at this time men were most left to themselves.

In our own epoch,
which follows the Greco-Latin time, we again find something very
distinctive. Hence the same Beings who were the leaders of humanity
in the Egypto-Chaldean time intervene again. If in clairvoyant
consciousness we lift ourselves into the presence of the leaders of
humanity, the same Beings appear to us as our spiritual leaders who
were the leaders of the Egypto-Chaldean time, both those who at that
time only inspired men, those Angels who had reached their
full goal on the Moon, and also the Heroes, the leaders who took on
fleshly form, that is to say, those who had not reached their full
development on the Moon, the Luciferic Beings. They all appear again.
But we must bear in mind that they have all undergone a further
development of their own. Just as man today is at another stage than
he was in the ancient Egyptian time, so also with these Angels and
Luciferic Angels. Their achievement in guiding humanity in the
EgyptoChaldean epoch raised them to a higher stage of evolution. If
we turn with the eye of seership to the Akasha Chronicle and see how
these leading Beings looked during the EgyptoChaldean epoch, we find
that at that time they had reached a certain level of development.
Now they emerge again from the twilight of existence and intervene
anew in human evolution, having meanwhile reached a greater degree of
perfection. But there is one difference.

Let us for a moment
ignore the Beings who at that time were Luciferic Angels, and turn
our attention to the normal Angels, those who during the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch directed evolution in the straight line of
advance. During that epoch some of them reached the normal goal of
their own development, but there were also among them a number who
lagged behind. Thus there are some who, although they had attained
their normal development on the Moon and thus entered into the
evolution of our present Earth as Angels, nevertheless, during the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch failed to achieve all that they could have
achieved on Earth. At that point they lagged behind. Thus among those
Beings who were still in the line of normal development during the
Egypto-Chaldean time there arose once more two classes, and there is
really an enormous difference between these two classes of Angels.
This difference has to do with the loftiest mystery of human
evolution, and it is of paramount importance that we should
understand it. I have already referred to it in the book
The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind.
In order to give an account of this difference we have to introduce
the name of Christ, the Christ who is so very closely bound up with
the whole range of Earth evolution.

We know that as far
as concerns Earth-development on the physical plane Christ was
incarnated for three years in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. We know
that that incarnation took place once for all, that there had been no
previous incarnation, and that there will be no other like it. What
the Christ did by dwelling for three years in a human body was
necessary for human beings on the Earth, it was necessary for men as
earthly beings of sense to have the Christ also among them once as an
earthly being of sense. But in His essential nature the Christ is not
restricted to His life for three years in the sheaths of Jesus of
Nazareth; He is also the leader of all the Beings of the higher
hierarchies. He is an all-embracing, cosmic, universal Being. Just as
through the Mystery of Golgotha He entered into human
evolution, so for the Beings of the higher hierarchies corresponding
events took place. That means that as time went on Christ brought
something about for all these Beings of the higher hierarchies. How
did this happen?

During the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch, as I have already said, the Angels went
through an evolution which has enabled them to take over the
leadership of mankind today as more highly developed Beings. What
made it possible for them to reach a higher stage of evolution? It
was because they themselves, while they were guiding human souls in
the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, became pupils of Christ in the spiritual,
super-sensible world. During the Egypto-Chaldean epoch Christ was the
teacher of the Angels. His impulse flowed into them during that
epoch, and it is because of this, because they have meanwhile been
permeated by Christ that they now appear at a higher stage of
development. Thus if at the time when the Greco-Latin age begins we
were to look at those Beings who had been the spiritual leaders of
the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, we should say that by the beginning of the
Greco-Latin age the most highly developed of them, those who were the
best prepared to play a leading part in our fifth epoch, had received
into themselves the Christ Impulse, which formerly they did not have,
and that as Christ-filled Beings they now influence mankind from the
higher worlds. In the same way the Archangels, who when they acted as
the inspirers of Zarathustra and his pupils had not yet been
‘Christ-ened’, have meanwhile absorbed the Christ
Impulse, and in the sixth culture-epoch, the epoch following our own,
they will be the spiritual leaders of mankind. But in
contradistinction to what they were in the Persian epoch, in the
sixth epoch they will appear as Christ-filled Beings. The Archai, the
Spirits of Personality, who were the inspirers of the Holy Rishis in
the Indian epoch, have also meanwhile absorbed the Christ Impulse,
and they will be the spiritual leaders of the seventh post-Atlantean
epoch. Then everything which was once proclaimed to mankind by the
voice of the Holy Rishis will come to pass in great glory and
majesty; but in the most advanced men of the seventh culture-epoch it
will all be illuminated, inflamed, set on fire by the Christ Impulse.
The Holy Rishis will rise again in the splendour of the Christ Sun in
the seventh culture-epoch of post-Atlantean humanity.Thus we see that
for the Beings of these four hierarchies—not only for man, but
also for Angels, Archangels and Archai — the Christ-event
signifies the very highest experience of which we in our cosmic
evolution can speak.

Why was it that
certain Beings lagged behind? It was because they rejected the Christ
Impulse. Thus we now have one class, one category, of guiding Beings
who have accepted the Christ, but in the action upon our own epoch of
another category, the backward Angelic Beings, there is no trace of
the Christ Impulse to be found. They have not been
‘Christened’. Whereas the Angels who since
Egypto-Chaldean times have been filled with the Christ Impulse now
imbue human evolution with forces which lead them upwards to a
spiritual life, the other Beings, those who rejected the Christ
Impulse, seek to give to humanity for their inspiration everything
which we can call materialistic culture and materialistic science.
Hence the confusion prevailing in our time between the inspiration
derived from the purest Christ Impulse, which should guide humanity
upwards to spirituality — and it is to this which we devote
ourselves when we follow strictly the goal of Spiritual Science
— and the other inspirers who have turned away from the Christ
and are concerned to introduce the material element into human
civilisation. These two tendencies intermingle in our time. We can
only understand our own epoch if we are aware that these two currents
of spiritual leadership dominate it. So long as we cannot distinguish
between them, and so long as we fanatically uphold one or the other
of them, we are not in a position to understand clearly the course of
our civilisation. Today under the guidance of the Angels who have
rejected the Christ Impulse we have a science which is quite
abstract, entirely unspiritual. We have the urge to rise to
spirituality because the other Angels whom I have described are
gaining an ever stronger hold upon the guidance of humanity. All the
great spiritual Beings who lead humanity forwards, whether as Angels,
Archangels or Archai, have at some time since Atlantis been open to
the Christ Impulse, just as at the lowest level man was open to it
through the Mystery of Golgotha. That is what the intervention of the
Christ Impulse means in human evolution.

Of course we have to
be quite clear that the Beings who were pressing forward towards
spirituality with the greatest intensity could not become incarnated
in human physical bodies even in the Egypt-Chaldean epoch. Even less
so can this happen in our own time. Even today we have to seek for
the outstanding spiritual leaders of humanity in the spiritual world
through the eye of seership, through spiritual-scientific knowledge;
to expect to find the highest leaders of humanity, the really
progressive authoritative leaders, incarnated in human bodies would
be quite wrong. From the universal rule that the real, guiding
individualities do not incarnate during Earth evolution in human
bodies, the Christ in a certain respect forms an exception, since He
was incarnated for three years in a human body. What is the reason
for this? It is because the Christ Being in all His forces, in all
His impulses, is an essentially higher Being than any of the
individualities of the hierarchies we have described — an
Individuality even higher than the Archangels and the Archai, a Being
of whose full greatness we can only be dimly aware. These stronger
forces and impulses enabled this Individuality to fulfil a purpose
that we shall come to understand more closely; they enabled Him to
assume a human fleshly sheath as a sacrifice for three years. But
something else is connected with this assumption of human bodily
sheaths by the Christ which then led to the Mystery of Golgotha
— something which it is important for us to understand.

It is only when we
reflect upon this other factor that we are able to grasp not only the
nature of Christ Himself, but also the nature of another figure, of
whom we know that he plays a very considerable role in human
evolution, a figure of whom we have already often treated in our
lectures, but who can only gradually be fully characterised — I
mean Lucifer. Let us consider these two individualities, Christ on
the one hand and Lucifer on the other, and let us take to begin with
only one characteristic of the Christ — that He once descended
to Earth so far as to incarnate in a human physical body, that He
dwelt for three years in such a body. What then is the consequence of
the event which culminated on the physical plane in the Mystery of
Golgotha?

The consequence was
that now the etheric and astral spheres of the Earth became
substantially permeated by the Christ Being. Whereas previously the
Being whom we know as Christ was not there, now the etheric and
astral spheres have become permeated through and through by Him. This
is hinted in the words spoken by Theodora in my Mystery Play
The Portal of Initiation.
Anyone who becomes clairvoyant in the
manner of St. Paul sees into the etheric sphere of the Earth and
perceives there the Christ — something which at an earlier time
was not possible even for the most advanced clairvoyant, something
which was first made possible by the Mystery of Golgotha. You know
that it is actually in the twentieth century, actually in our own
time that a number of men will repeat this event of Damascus and
recognise the Christ. Through their further development men will
raise themselves ever more and more to a recognition of the etheric
Christ. This shows you that it is an essential feature of the
evolution of Christ that after the Mystery of Golgotha, search as we
may in the physical realm, we shall not find the Christ substance as
such incarnated there. Nevertheless the Earth is saturated by the
Christ substance, because it reaches right down to the etheric sphere
of the Earth, and will be able to be found there for all time, though
it could never condense to the physical in a body of flesh. Today
what is physical upon Earth is like a snail shell, which one day when
the Earth has reached the goal of its evolution will fall away from
the totality of human souls, just as the physical body now falls away
from the individual soul at death. There will be a death of the Earth
when it has reached the goal of its evolution. Just as today the
individual soul throws off the physical body and enters a spiritual
realm when man passes through the gate of death, so at the death of
the Earth the totality of human souls will pass over into a spiritual
sphere, and will cast off as dross, as husk, what today constitutes
the physical element of the Earth. Where will be the Christ-substance
when the Earth has undergone its earthly death? It will permeate the
totality of human souls, who will rise out of the corpse of the
Earth, out of the earthly dross. The Christ Being, together with the
totality of human souls, ascends further into the spiritual realms,
in order later to come to the next incorporation of the Earth, which
in Spiritual Science we call Jupiter. That is the essence of the
Christ Being, that in a wholly spiritualised form He continues to
lead mankind in its development; He does not enter into any kind of
physical manifestation, but for the time being remains close to the
physical, but only until the death of the Earth; He remains close to
the physical inasmuch as it is permeated by the etheric, but when the
Earth has reached the goal of its evolution, the physical will be
cast off as a corpse. Since the Mystery of Golgotha the Christ has
retained absolutely nothing which could arouse in Him a desire to
assume any kind of physical body. His renunciation of all physical
substance is absolute.

That is the great
secret connected with the Mystery of Golgotha, that by the sacrifice
of His three years passed in a physical body, the Christ Being
brought it about that nothing of Him will be left behind in the
Earth-husk which will fall away at the death of the Earth. Because,
though the Christ does indeed permeate the Earth's physical
substances, He does not since the Mystery of Golgotha unite Himself
with them, nothing remains in His nature which could look back with
longing towards the cast-off husk at the death of the Earth. This
husk will be cast off, it will shine from afar like a star. It will
be seen by Beings then dwelling upon the outer planets as they gaze
outwards into the heavenly spaces.

Will not only the
Christ and those belonging to Him, but all other Beings, cease to
have any connection with this star which will be cast off as dross at
the death of the Earth? Not at all. I have just been speaking, for
instance, of those Beings who rejected the Christ Impulse in the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch. Some of them will go on rejecting Him. In
certain circumstances even in time to come these Beings may incarnate
in physical bodies and walk the Earth as men. They will be the ones
who will yearn in a way after the star cast off at the death of the
Earth, which will radiate in splendour out there in space. After the
death of the Earth all those souls who belong to the Christ will in
the future admire this star, but they will not hanker after it, they
will not say, ‘That star is our home’. Neither these
souls nor the souls of the Beings of the higher hierarchies will
yearn after this star, any more than souls on the Earth hanker after
Mars. They raise their eyes to Mars, receive its beneficent
influence, but they do not yearn after it.

What then would have
happened if the Christ Being had not entered into Earth evolution?
There would have been a tremendous difference in the destiny of
humanity. Suppose for a moment that the Christ had not entered human
evolution; the Earth would still undergo death, human beings and the
higher hierarchies would still continue their development in the
spiritual worlds, but they would carry into those worlds the
perpetual longing for that star which, as the husk of the Earth,
would radiate with wondrous brilliance into the universe. Human
beings without the Christ would look down from Jupiter with tragic
longing towards the star formed of earthly dross, and not only would
they admire it, but longingly they would say: ‘That is our
home, it is grievous that we have to be here, grievous that we cannot
be in our true home upon that star.’ That is the difference it
would have made in the course of evolution if the Christ Impulse had
not united itself with the Earth. To liberate men from the Earth, to
make them free and independent for evolution that is to come in the
future, that was the mission of Christ upon Earth. We see the
immensity of the Christ-event, we see that it is because Christ has
dwelt upon the Earth that humanity will become mature enough to
evolve towards the future structure of our planet.

Is there any instance
of Beings working on another planet who yearn after some other
heavenly body as if it were their own true home? Yes, there are such
cases; let us take one of them and compare him with the Christ.
During the Moon evolution there were powerful Beings, exalted Beings,
who however in a certain respect did not reach the goal of their Moon
evolution. Among these exalted Beings was a host under its own leader
which, when the Moon evolution came to an end and the evolution of
the Earth began, had not attained the goal of its own evolution. Now
this host of Beings entered into Earth evolution, and participated in
the guidance of humanity, but always with this tragic longing for a
cosmic star which had been cast out of the Moon evolution in the way
I have described in the book
Occult Science.
Within the spiritual evolution of the Earth are mighty, highly significant
Beings, with their leader, who, because they had to quit the Moon and
go on to the Earth without having reached their full development,
really feel this yearning for a star outside in the cosmos which they
regard as their true home, but to which they cannot attain. These
hosts are the hosts of Lucifer. Lucifer himself takes part in Earth
evolution with the perpetual longing within him for his true home,
for the star Venus outside in the cosmos. That is the salient feature
of the Luciferic nature seen from the cosmic aspect. Clairvoyant
consciousness comes to know just what the star of Venus is by
entering into the soul of Lucifer, thus experiencing from the Earth
Lucifer's tragic longing, like a wonderful cosmic nostalgia,
for the star Phosphorus, Lucifer or Venus. For what Lucifer cast off
as a husk, what at the death of the Moon was cast out of the
Luciferic beings, as the physical body is cast off by the human soul
at death, shines down from heaven as Venus.

I have now put before
you from the cosmic aspect something about our Earth and about its
neighbouring planet Venus. This was of course not experienced by the
Greeks quite in the way I have expressed it, but it nevertheless
lived in their sensations and feelings. When a Greek turned to the
stars, especially when he turned to Venus, he sensed in his soul the
inner connection between such a star and certain beings who inflame
and inspire the earthly realm. When the ancient Greek felt what
Lucifer was to the Earth, when he said to himself, as it were
‘The Luciferic principle wafts through our earthly
existence’, he looked up to the star Venus and said:
‘There is the wandering point in the heavenly spaces towards
which Lucifer's longings perpetually tend’.

This gives you the
Greek sense of one of the ‘wonders of the world’, and it
brings out very clearly that the Greek was far from gazing into space
as do our modern astronomers, describing Venus as a purely physical
globe. What then was Venus to the Greek soul? It was that region of
space which he came to identify by observing clairvoyantly the
spiritual content of Lucifer's soul; for in the soul of Lucifer
he detected the great longing which reaches out as a living bridge
from the Earth to Venus. This longing which the Greek soul recognised
as being Lucifer's, he also felt to belong to the substance of
Venus. The Greek did not see just the physical planet, he saw
something which had been severed from the Luciferic Being, just as
the physical body is severed from man when he goes through the gate
of death, and as the corpse of the Earth will be severed when the
Earth has reached the goal of her evolution. But there is this
difference. The physical body of man is destined to disintegrate,
whereas the body of a Lucifer is destined, when it falls away from
the being of soul, to shine as a star in the heavenly spaces. In what
I have just said about Venus, I have at the same time described what
in the spiritual sense stars are. What are they to a quickened
insight — those wonders of the world, those wonders of Nature
— but the bodies of gods? What has gone forth into space from
the bodies of the gods has become star. Looking up into the starry
worlds, this is how the Greek saw the planets and the fixed stars. He
said to himself: ‘The spiritual beings whom we revere as gods
were once upon a time out there in space. They have undergone
development. When they reached that point which for them corresponds
with what for man during earthly existence is death, then their
physical substance left them and became star.’

Stars are the bodies
of gods, gods whose souls work on in the world in another way,
independently of those bodies— just as Lucifer became
independent of his body and continues to work in our Earth evolution.
To grasp this is to have a spiritualised conception of nature and of
the world. This of course has nothing in common with the wishy-washy
pantheism which gives out that all Nature is permeated with a uniform
divinity. Such a statement is inadequate; stars cannot simply be
defined in this abstract way, as bodies through which the gods
manifest themselves; when one looks up to those far-distant worlds
one has to understand that the stars are bodies which the gods have
abandoned, having progressed to other stages of evolution. But in
this we find the difference between all the planetary gods and the
Christ. As I have explained, the Christ leaves no such physical star
at the death of the Earth, no residue still unspiritualised, but
passes over entirely into the spiritual world, and as spirit goes
over with the human soul into the Jupiter existence. That is one of
the essential differences between the planetary spirits and the
Christ-Spirit. It is of supreme importance to bear this distinction
in mind for it shows that the whole meaning of the Mystery of
Golgotha would be lost if, after that event, He whom we rightly call
the Christ could once more incarnate in a physical body. For if,
after the Mystery of Golgotha, the Spirit to whom we rightly give the
name of Christ were again to incarnate in a physical body, this
physical substance would furnish the first germ to which other
substance would attach itself to form a star which in the future
would remain behind, and the profound significance, the profound
purpose of the Mystery of Golgotha would fail to be attained. The
Christ would only have to incarnate in some physical body to belie
Himself, and to annul the Mystery of Golgotha. He would then create a
point of attraction of a material nature to which other material
would attach itself. There would then have to be other incarnations
of the same Being. In this way a star would be created towards which
man would yearn for all time. Such a nostalgia may not be brought
about by the Christ Being. Hence, after the Mystery of Golgotha, no
one is justified in associating any incarnation in a body of flesh
with the name of Christ. To do so implies either an abuse of the name
of Christ, or a complete lack of comprehension of the Mystery of
Golgotha.

It is extremely
important that these things should be understood. For only so is it
possible to bring the universal nature of the Christ into a right
relationship to human evolution. The forces which will be produced in
a part of the human soul through the obliteration of the longing for
the Earth, these forces, like all others, have to be strengthened by
opposition. Hence it must necessarily be brought about by the wise
guidance of the world that again Beings are left behind who, as was
the case with the leading Angels of the Egypto-Chaldean time, with
the Archangels of the Persian epoch, and the leading Archai of the
Indian epoch, do not permeate themselves with the Christ Impulse, and
therefore will continue to guide evolution without it. In future
evolution they will be the element through which there will still
admittedly be a certain longing and even a certain union with what as
planetary residuum, as stars, will be out there in the universe and
will be seen from Jupiter, just as our Venus, our Mars and our
Jupiter are seen from the Earth. Thus it is really a different stream
of humanity and a different stream of the higher hierarchies which
will continue to hanker after the influence exerted upon the humanity
of Jupiter from its future planetary neighbours. One must clearly
distinguish these two things, then the greatest truth will throw
light upon the lesser ones. Everywhere these two streams intermingle.
Everywhere we see the progressing Christ Being, Who will guide men
upwards to a higher vision of Himself; on the other hand we see the
forces of hindrance, to which we must not give the name of the
Christ, forces which even incarnate in human bodies; they too can
acquire knowledge of the Christ, but they cannot acquire a Christ
Impulse such as have the Angels who completed their evolution in the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch; they are Beings who even in future times will
be able to descend to fleshly embodiment.

We must clearly
distinguish the one from the other. All the materialistic thought of
our time comes from the Spirits who hinder, who hold progress back.
To expect the salvation of mankind solely from individualities who
could in the future incarnate in the flesh is a thought which comes
from these Spirits of hindrance, for it is a materialistic principle.
It deflects men from their upward course towards the vision of the
spiritual. It concentrates their attention upon individualities
incarnated in physical bodies upon whom they rely just because they
can be seen by the physical senses.

Pre-Christian Greece
had no clear insight into all that I have been saying about the
Christ, because the Mystery of Golgotha had not yet taken place; but
it had a spiritual perception of Lucifer and of his connection with
the planet Venus, and of the connection of other gods with other
stars. All these sensations and feelings which the Greeks derived
from an archetypal wisdom, are a preparation for the ideas, the
feelings, the impulses of soul which awoke in the informed Greek when
the name Dionysos was spoken. Hence what has been said today has been
a necessary preparation to enable us tomorrow to enter into those
wonders of the world, those marvels of Nature, of which the Greeks
thought when they spoke of Dionysos. This will serve to build a
bridge to something which concerns man more closely, this will lead
us to his inner nature, to the ordeals of his soul.